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May 11, 2009

Typos

Potentially burning a bridge. Do I really want to criticize my current agent? Probably not, but do I really think I’m going to publish traditionally again? Probably not. If I do, it will be because a book I’ve put out myself was successful, in which case the criticism of my agent today won’t mean much. But my agent rejected my novel based on typos. She mentioned other things, but the fact that she mentioned typos at all is extremely very puzzling. Would an editor reject a book based on typos? It would be a day’s worth of work to fix.

The full criticism is:

That being said, I am afraid that I cannot accept your novel for representation at this time. There are several grammatical errors and typos that require editing, and I would also consider rewriting your introduction. Also, I fear you spell things out for your reader that would be better served being subtly hinted at. Since you possess such strong skills in character development, many of Eugene’s spoken opinions are unnecessary because you expose them in his interactions and dialogue.

I’ll accept everything else she said, but typos is just bizarre to me. Even if she was looking for some way to let me down easy, typos shouldn’t enter into the equation: because they can be fixed and fixed easily. Anyway, it’s confirmed now that I’m releasing the novel myself. I really, truly need the money of a book deal, but I really, truly don’t see how this is possible in the current state of things.

Pretty sure she didn't read the whole thing, as there's no mention of the plot, no mention of anything beyond the first chapter. So she's looking for a way to let me down, but let me just say "typos" should never be that way.

I can be confident mentioning this because I've had someone copyedit it and there weren't too many typos. The novel's not a mess that needs a total overhaul.